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Met up with a friend of mine for some riding on Friday (8th), the plan was to head up to Lake Winnipesaukee and cruise around some, then meet up with some other friends for food, drinks, swimming, etc. We're just through downtown Alton northbound on Rt. 11, not an hour into our trip, when the S hits the F. We're riding staggered as normal going in the vicinity of 20mph, just passing a convenience store / gas station. Downtown was packed with some kind of car show/meet, so opposing traffic is stop and go -- mostly stop and our side is just starting to pick up after getting the mess behind us.

Suddenly, directly ahead, a wild masshole in a jeep SUV appears from behind a delivery truck, making for the entrance to the gas station. He's not at the entrance yet, so he's doing one of those half-assed diagonals across our lane as he turns in. We're both hard on the brakes with about 1.5 car length warning and nowhere to go when he sees us coming -- and decides to slam HIS brakes and just stop, completely blocking our lane.

My ABS ('13 ninja 1k) performs admirably and I manage to stop ok. My buddy on his FZ8 isn't so lucky. I hear a tire chirp or two and turn my head to see him, back wheel nearly off the ground, when he hits the jeep roughly at the c-pillar location. Next thing I know, his bike is down, and he's standing, giving the universal "WTF, man?!" signal to the SUV. Damage to both sides of the bike since the angle at impact turned his wheel sharp left with the right side hitting the idiot, and then going down on the left side. Broken finger between the brake lever and suv, good bruise on his forearm near the elbow too, but otherwise unhurt.

Wanna guess what the driver said?

If you guess "I didn't see you" -- well, you're almost right!

"I couldn't see around the truck."

He said that to me three times. Each time I said (ok, yelled) "Well maybe you should have waited until you COULD see, huh?!"

Called five-oh, report made, statement taken down. FZ8 totaled, but full coverage and already paid out -- and also paid for new gloves, boots, jacket, helmet, etc. So I met up with him yesterday to take delivery of his new Street Triple -- with ABS, of course.

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We're on roughly equal footing. He has about a year more than I do on the street, but I have a dirtbike background that he lacks. He kept it under control and didn't go down with the bike. I think I probably reacted faster, but the ABS definitely helped me out. The jerk was angled and thus closer to him, but we weren't riding side by side either; I was the normal bike length or so ahead of him. He's a large guy compared to me as well so I'm sure that didn't help.

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Wow, I'm jealous as I always wanted ABS. Our local dealer doesn't sell the Ninja 650 with ABS here in Manila. They do sell the Ninja 1k with ABS, but it's out of my league (noob). What did it feel like when the ABS kicked into action?

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Wow, I'm jealous as I always wanted ABS. Our local dealer doesn't sell the Ninja 650 with ABS here in Manila. They do sell the Ninja 1k with ABS, but it's out of my league (noob). What did it feel like when the ABS kicked into action?

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Wow, I'm jealous as I always wanted ABS. Our local dealer doesn't sell the Ninja 650 with ABS here in Manila. They do sell the Ninja 1k with ABS, but it's out of my league (noob). What did it feel like when the ABS kicked into action?

It felt fine.. not as intrusive as it feels in a car but that might just be due to gloves and boots vs. bare hands and sneakers blunting it somewhat. Had a little pain on top of left pectoral the day after, I imagine from the bike trying to throw me off.

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Good to hear you and your friend are fine. I fell in love with my ABS a few weeks ago. I was cursing along on the highway doing about 75 when the traffic ahead of me just came to a complete stop. I had enough following distance I would have been fine even without it but it was very cool to see the ABS in action. I slammed on the brakes and immediately felt/heard the system kick in. I say heard because there was a distinctive Squee (pause) Squee (pause) Squee as it balanced tire skid to eliminate locking up and maintain control

I probably would have stopped like 40feet short of the car ahead of me but I actually let off the brakes because I was worried about the car behind me.

Like I said I didn't need it that time but it is very reassuring to know the technology is there if you need it. We'll worth the money IMHO.

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i was wondering if the ABS would keep me from making unknown mistakes. I pulled into a gas station the other day, just normal breaking for slowing to a stop. my front hit some sand around there pumps, so my front tire slid about a foot. Everything was fine, but i was thinking, if my wheel was turned slightly maybe i would have lost balance. You never know when there is something slippery in parking lots and places. Do you think the ABS can detect circumstances like this and help?

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I don't remember hearing the noise, and a modern ABS (in a car, anyway) shouldn't actually let the tires get to the point that they're skidding, but to be honest -- I don't really remember *hearing* anything. In fact there's a blank spot between seeing my buddy nearly up on his front wheel (which I remember in slow motion), and then seeing him standing over his bike. It was all just too fast and unexpected.

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i was wondering if the ABS would keep me from making unknown mistakes. I pulled into a gas station the other day, just normal breaking for slowing to a stop. my front hit some sand around there pumps, so my front tire slid about a foot. Everything was fine, but i was thinking, if my wheel would of be turned slightly maybe i would have lost balance. You never know when there is something slippery on the road to make your tire slide. Do you think the ABS can detect circumstances like this and help?

In a straight line, it might have prevented the skid. The ABS only intervenes if the difference and front and rear wheel speed is high enough (one wheel is starting to skid, or the rear is in the air) AND you're going over 6mph.

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No? just ABS, that's how i works. It doesn't know the wheel is 'airborne' if that's what you mean, but it does know if it's stopped or slowing down a lot faster than the front -- which it will do if it's in the air.

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Glad you're buddy came out of it alright. I just got my first bike ( 2014 650 abs). Glad my wife convinced me I'd I'm going to Gary a new bike it might as well have the abs. I found out it works pretty well the other day coming into the parking lot at work. Feels weird but it definitely helped me keep the bike under control when I got surprised by an idiot flying around the traffic circle in the parking lot. I only have a month of riding under my belt but feel I did alright for the situation.

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Sorry for your friend. It's sounds like an unfortunate situation that was perhaps avoidable, perhaps not. I notice things like box trucks, or semis, or objects which can hide people waiting to do something foolish for just these reasons.

I'm not anti-ABS. For wet weather riders ABS would be well worth having.

For normal dry weather riding, I'd guess 90% of accidents ABS would provide little to no benefit. Or to say, in 90% of near-accident situations it's not really ABS that "saved me", just because you A) have ABS and B) performed panic braking. For example, I was riding last Saturday and came to a 1 way stop (T) that was kind of hidden. I hit my brakes pretty hard, and the rear tire locked up for a second. I didn't have an accident, nor whatever else, and I didn't have ABS. So in that exact same situation, having ABS would not have been of any benefit, however it would be very easy to say "ABS saved me".

Again, I want to be clear that I'm not anti-ABS. But I do think it's essential to not use it as a safety crutch, that you can pay less attention, or that you can push too hard and depend on ABS to keep you from running wide in a turn you misjudged. Kind of the same way with high-vis-gear. I do believe it makes me more visible as a person to caged idiots. However, even though I wear highly visible gear this only adds to the other trained safety techniques I employ while riding.

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G'day everyone, just seeing if anyone can give the measurement , for the tread around the middle of the alternator rotor where the rotor puller screw on, plus the diameter of the circle? For a kawasaki gpx 250r 2000/ ninja 250r 2006,
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